James Cross

Taped memoir of (a) his experiences as Senior Trade Commissioner and head of the

British Government office in Montreal in 1968-70 and his kidnapping in 1970 by a

terrorist group, the FLQ; (b) the work of the Trade Commissioner Service (pp 22-28).

Annex A, Security, p 20

Annex B, War Measures Act, p 21

J A M E S C R O S S

I am James Cross commonly known as Jasper and these tapes record the

events during my period as Senior Trade Commissioner and head of the British

Government office in Montreal. I arrived in Montreal in February 1968. While my

post was primarily one of economic affairs and commercial promotion it was clear from

the point of my arrival that politics was going to form a major part of my concerns.

The situation in Quebec at the time was extremely interesting. Since the

conquest in 1759 the French Canadians who formed the vast majority of the

population in Quebec had maintained an uneasy relationship with the rest of

Canada. The Quebec Act of 1774 had guaranteed them the i r language

and re l ig ion (a concession unusual in the middle of the eighteenth

century). Immigration from France stopped immediately after the conquest and

the French Canadians found themselves surrounded by an increasing number of

non French speakers, firstly people from the Bri t ish Isles and then as the

nineteenth century progressed immigrants from central and Eastern Europe.

They reacted in the first instance by the highest birth rate ever known in a

white people but gradually the balance of power shifted more firmly to the non

francophones in Canada. Many attempts were made particularly at

Confederation to retain some balance towards the French Canadians but these

were gradually overtaken by the pressure of economic events. The situation was

exacerbated by the fact that all the leaders of French Canada had left at the

conquest and the population grew in on itself with the church and the land as its

sole support. Thus French Canada did not take part in the great economic

advances which swept North America from the middle of the nineteenth

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century onwards. For bright young French Canadians the only outlets were the

law and the church.

In French Canada and particularly in Quebec there developed almost a

colonial regime in which the political masters delivered the vote to national

political parties in return for patronage and the economic advances were left

to the non French. This trend was exacerbated from the middle 1930's onwards

when the vast expansion of economic activity resulting from the Second World

War brought increased manufactur ing and development of natural

resources to Canada mainly with American money. As a result the dominant economic

forces in Quebec became either US dominated or English Canadian control led

and the French Canadians found themselves as the low men on the totem pole.

It used to be said tha t in any large bui lding in Montreal the proportion

of French Canadians decreased as you rose to the top floors where there would

be found a statutory French Canadian perhaps as Personnel Director.

In addition to the inevitable economic trends the Quebec situation was made worse

by the dominance of the Union Nationale under Duplessis from the 1930's onwards. He

ran a traditional old style political system with patronage as his main weapon and

preserved the traditional French Canadian values.

All this changed with the election of the Liberal Party under John Lesage in 1959. What

became known as the quiet revolution took place. The whole of Quebec society the

law education business was opened up to the forces of the modern world; in the

economic sphere this meant a great advance in opportunities for French

Canadians using state owned businesses like Hydro Quebec as the spear head. But as

so often when restrictions are lifted there is a general expecta t ion which

wi l l not necessar i ly be met by democratic means. Thus from 1962 onwards

there emerged a revolutionary terrorist movement in Quebec called the FLQ. Their

objective was to break the "colonial" hold on Quebec by violence. They were

mostly associated with students or unemployed teachers in Montreal but

curiously enough two of their leaders were foreigners, one from Belgium and

one from Hungary. They made themselves known through a series of terrorist

incidents throughout the 1960s with raids on banks, attacks on arms stores, bombings

of federal building particularly military armouries. Several people were

2

killed. The police and the security forces reacted fairly rapidly and a number

of the active terrorists were arrested and sentenced to long periods of

imprisonment. In Canada generally the demands of the French Canadians for

parity in the Canadian political system were recognised as a valid claim and

through the 1960's there were a number of attempts mainly through the

Committee on Bi-Culturalism to try and produce a system whereby French

Canadians could feel happy working right across Canada. This however was far too

slow for the extremists who we re no t i n t e r e s t e d i n p a r t i c i p a t i o n a n d

wa n t e d an independent and anti capitalist Quebec.

My first introduction to the violence that was to come was at the St John Baptiste Day

Parade in 1968. This is the Quebec National day and is usually marked by

processions and floats through the streets of Montreal. On the reviewing

stand that day was Pierre Trudeau who had just been elected leader of the Liberal

Party and who was a convinced and vocal Federalist. American Consul

Harrison Burgess and I attended with our wives. Both of us were to meet

terrorism again within two years. The Parade was marked by

demonstrations against Trudeau ending with bottles being thrown at the reviewing

platform.

Over the next couple of years there were a series of terrorist incidents the

most important being the bombing of the Montreal Stock Exchange. In the

summer of 1970 I went on leave in England and returned in mid summer. I

learned then that there had been an attempt to kidnap Harrison Burgess our

American Consul but that the police had raided a farm house near Montreal captured

the intended kidnappers and seized a quanti ty of documents including the

demands that they intended to submit. These included the release of a large number

of so called 'political' prisoners, the payment of a ransom and the

reinstatement of certain workers who had been dismissed under a

privatisation contract. (The same demands were to emerge a few months later

with the addition of a demand for the name of the informer who had given the

group away.)

Though Harrison Burgess was protected by police there was no general warning

3

to consular officials in Montreal that any further incidents were expected. In fact, when

the new American Consul, General Topping, arrived later that summer no special

protection was given to his house. (See Annex A).

October 5th was a typical bright Montreal Autumn day. My wife and I were

facing a busy week with a number of important engage me n t s i nc lud ing

a v i s i t f rom the P r e s iden t o f t he Confederation of British Industries for whom

we were organising certain functions and we were discussing the week ahead

as I walked between the bedroom and the bathroom dressing. I then heard a

ring of the doorbell and was surprised that anybody would arrive that early

in the morning. My wife suggested that it was probably Hydro Quebec come to read

the meter so I took no further notice. I then heard raised voices but did not pay

much attention as our maid was inclined to speak loudly sometimes to her small child.

The next thing I knew was as I was walking back towards the bathroom dressed

only in shirt and underpants. A man came through from the opposite side

holding a gun and said, 'Get down on the floor or you'll be fucking dead'. I

backed into the bedroom lay on the floor and he then made me turn over onto my

face and puts handcuffs on me. Our Dalmatian dog was sitting on the bed

beside my wife and started to growl and he told her that if she let the dog move he

would shoot it. He then called out another man who came up the s ta i rs into

the bedroom carrying a sub machine gun and shepherding the maid and her

daughter in front of them. The first man then took me into the dressing room

beyond the bathroom put my trousers on and shoes and slipped a jacket over my

shoulders. He then led me back through the bedroom. My wife sa id "you

must le t me say goodbye to my husband" and came over and kissed me

goodbye. They tore the phones out of the sockets beside the bed and told my wife that

she must not phone anybody for an hour. I was then taken downstairs where

there was a third man also armed. We went out through the front door and

there was a taxi sitting outside the house. The only other person I could

see was a gardener collecting leaves on the far side of the road. I was

pushed into the taxi and shoved down between the front and back seats and a rug

thrown over my head. Then we drove for about five to ten minutes and stopped

in what was clearly some sort of garage or workshop. I was taken out, made to

stand against the wall with my eyes closed and a gas mask with the eye

4

pieces painted black was placed over my head. I was then taken back and pushed into

another car in the same position between the seats and we drove for possibly

fifteen to twenty minutes. We finally drew up in what was clearly the garage of

a house. I was taken out, led upstairs the handcuffs were transferred from

behind my back to the front and I was put lying down on a mattress in a room where I

was to spend the next fifty nine days. My gas mask was removed and a hood placed on

my head. I asked them what their intentions were and they said I would have to wait

and see. Later that morning they read me their manifesto which included the

demands for the release of political prisoners etc. as had been demanded for

Harrison Burgess. If these demands were not met I would be executed within forty

eight hours. On hearing this I said, "In that case I must compose myself for

death." During the whole day the radio was on most of the time and they

were listening avidly to the various reports coming in. Sometime later in the day

following a call to a radio station, messages from the kidnappers were found at the

University of Montreal. These listed seven demands to be met "In order to preserve the

life of the representative of the ancient racist and colonialist British system". It gave the

authorities until noon on Wednesday i.e. forty eight hours to submit. That

afternoon the Quebec Justice Minister made a s ta tement out ly ing the

ransom demands . These , as I have mentioned, were similar to those for

Harrison Burgess early in the summer including the release of twenty three "political

prisoners", the provision of an aircraft for their transportation to Cuba or

A l g e r i a , f i v e h u n d r e d t h o u s a n d d o l l a r s i n g o l d b a r s , t h e

reinstatement of some postal drivers who had been dismissed as a result of

privatisation, the name of the informer who had helped the police apprehend the

earlier cell, the publication of the full text of the FLQ manifesto and the cessation of

all police activities.

The next few days presented a picture of some confusion; I think it took authorities

in both Quebec and Ottawa a little longer to recognise the seriousness of the

demands and in the first instance it appeared that the Quebec Government were

taking the lead with Prime Minister Trudeau refusing to answer questions on the

subject. In spite of this the premier Bourassa announced that he was carrying on

with a business promotion visit to New York on the Thursday and Friday. On the

Tuesday evening a message was delivered to a radio station which contained a

5

personal letter from me to my wife and repeating the demands that the FLQ

requests be met in full otherwise, "we will not hesitate to do away with J Cross."

On Wednesday there was a further communication from the FLQ including one

from me dictated of course by them, asking that their demands should be met .

There was st i l l no clear response from ei ther Quebec or Federal

Governments. On Thursday the first step was taken when the FLQ

manifesto, a crude polemic attacking every institution in Canada and Quebec

and abuse for politicians such as Trudeau and Bourassa was read by a po-faced

announcer on Radio Canada's television network. On Friday 9th the Minister of

Justice asked for my kidnappers to provide proof that I was still alive and well and a

letter containing the message which I had been asked to sign was delivered to a

radio station. Saturday the tenth, Choquette the Justice Minister of Quebec came on

television and radio just before 6:00pm and said that the kidnappers’ demands would

not be met but they offered to provide them with safe conduct to a foreign country

in return for my release. He also promised to examine the cases of those

"political" prisoners to see if parole or remission of sentence would be justified.

During the whole of this week my condition had been static. After the first day or

two I was allowed to sit in an armchair for most of the day but still handcuffed. My

hood was adjusted so that I could watch television during part of the day although I

never saw my captors. Arrangements were made for me to be provided with

some pills for my blood pressure for which my wife had appealed on television.

The television and radio were on constantly and members of the group were

frequently going out to bring back newspapers which they read avidly for news of their

exploits.

After Mr Choquette had made his statement I asked them what they were going

to do with me . They replied that they were going to hold me for a few days

"pour baver la police", to taunt the police. In a few minutes the news came

on radio that Pierre Laporte the Minister of Labour and Deputy Prime Minister of

the Quebec Government had been kidnapped. He had been playing football

outside his house with a young nephew when four men drove up in a car,

bundled him into it and drove off. This changed the whole situation for whereas I was

a virtually unknown foreign diplomat, Pierre Laporte had been a major figure

in Quebec politics for the past twenty years. All attention was now focussed on

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his fate.

The next week was then concentrated on the cell holding Pierre Laporte. On the

Sunday there were three communications from the cell including in the

evening a long letter from Laporte to Bourassa drawing attention to the number of

people who were depending on him and urging that the kidnappers’ demands

be met. It's well to point out here that all public messages by either Laporte or me

were dictated by the kidnappers and accepted as the only means of communication

with the outside world. On the Monday morning a let ter from me was

discovered and the Government then proceeded to open negotiations through an

i n t e r me d i a r y n a me d D e me r s . T h e n e x t f e w d a y s s a w a n astonishing

rise in support for the FLQ's demands coming not only from old FLQ militants

but also from students and the trade unions. On Wednesday 14th a message from my

cell was found indicating that contact had been made between the two and that

their joint demands were that the prisoners should be sent to Cuba or Algeria and

thereafter Cross and Laporte would be freed. The same day there came an appeal from a

number of leading Quebec figures including publishers and labour leaders. While

offering their support to the provincial Government they clearly favoured an

exchange of prisoners for the hostages. On Thursday 15th Trudeau met with

opposition leaders to seek a solution to the situation. He got no general

support and on that evening troops were called out in support of the forces

of law and order in Quebec. At this point they were only carrying out guard

duties and protection in support of the police. That evening there was a rally at

the Paul Sauvé Arena. This was originally organised by the opposition party in the

civic elections but was taken over by a large number of FLQ supporters including

LaMieux the lawyer negotiating for the FLQ, Michel Chartrand a leading

nationalist labour leader and several well known FLQ supporters. I was

watching the event on television and it did seem at that point as if a very large

number of people in Montreal were supporting the aims and objectives of the

FLQ. In the early hours of Friday morning (the 16th) the government passed the

War Measures Act which, for the first time in peace-time, imposed a state of war in

Canada. Immediately a large number of FLQ sympathisers and supporters were

rounded up together with a number of other people whose connection with the

movement was to say the least slight. Friday evening Trudeau came on television

7

and said that the Government would not give in to these demonstrations and

attempts by a small group to force its will on the majority by violence. We

were listening to this on television and immediately after he'd finished I heard

the woman in the group (presumably Louise Cassett Trudel) say, "Laporte est

mort", Laporte is dead. (For details of the events leading up to the War Measures Act

see Annex B).

The following day was reasonably quiet with no great activity that I could see.

Then in the late evening watching television, news came in that there was

something strange happening at St Hubert Airport to the east of Montreal. Shortly

afterwards one began to see the television cameras arriving on the scene. In the

early hours of the morning the trunk of a car which was parked there was

broken open to reveal the body of Pierre Laporte. It was then revealed that

a telephone call to a radio station earlier in the evening had given this news.

Thus the journalists arrived almost as soon as the police. The rest of that

evening or early morning was chaotic. Shortly after the announcement that

Laporte's body had been found there was an announcement that my body had been

found at Rawdon near Quebec. This was naturally an appalling piece of

news since I feared that my wife might be watching. I wanted to get up and

shake the television set and scream "I'm not dead! I'm not dead!". Finally I

think even my captors took pity on me and gave me some aspirin or something to

calm me down. The following morning they allowed me to write a letter to my

wife.

Before we continue the rest of the story I might describe the conditions

under which I was held during the first week. As I mentioned I began by

being handcuffed then after a day or so these were changed that two handcuffs

linked together with cloth to avoid them fraying my wrists were attached. I was

allowed to sit in an arm chair for most of the day and watch television or

listen to the radio or read news papers. While these conditions were not

terrible onerous it was clear that there were other measures to be taken if I

should prove recalcitrant. For example, there were bolts fitted to the floor which

could be used to chain me down and there were all the implements for gagging

and other methods of restraint. Accordingly I decided that the only way to survive

8

was to go along with the kidnappers and obey their orders.

The next six weeks were into a fairly steady routine. The first few days there was the

drama of Pierre Laporte's funeral and the surrounding interest and

excitement. Also reports of the various police raids and arrests of those

suspected of FLQ sympathies. Mayor Drapeau fought his municipal election

and swept the opposition (suspected of FLQ sympathy) from the field. My own

position sank into one of inertia. The kidnappers refused to discuss their

next moves with me but one evening I heard a number of them talking in

another room and one returned to give my guard the news. I could not hear the

full gist of his statement but I clearly heard the word 'indefinitely'. The routine

was that I usually got up about 10 in the morning, was allowed to wash and go to

the lavatory, sometimes to shave although the woman in the party was reluctant to

allow me to do so. Then I returned to sit in the chair facing the television set

and spent the rest of the day there. I would either read, watch television when

they had it on, l isten to the radio or play innumerable games of Patience.

Another means of occupying my mind was to go over holidays or things I had done in

the past, for example, I began to retrace in my mind the walk of about three quarters of

a mile which I used to take to school as a small boy. In the beginning I could

barely remember the details, but after a few weeks I could probably have described

every blade of grass on the route . Food usual ly consisted of toast and

coffee in the morning, two pieces of toast, one with peanut butter. In the

evening there was some sort of a mess, sometimes soup sometimes a Chinese

meal or some sort of mess up. The food was not very adequate and in fact I lost

22lbs in my eight weeks incarceration. After the excitements and dramas

of the first two weeks in captivity culminating in the terrible night when

Laporte's body was found the remaining six weeks were very much a period of

stagnation. I followed the same routine getting up late watching television,

reading or playing patience during the day and going to bed very late at night

after the last television programme had finished. My selection of reading

was a curious mixture, on the one hand there were the revolutionary manuals such

as Valliere's on the wrongs of the French Canadians, 'The Wretched of the Earth'

by Franz Fanon the Algerian psychologist who was a guru of the Algerian

revolution and a few miscellaneous works on the revolutionaries of the

9

1960's. On the other hand there was a very good selection of early Agatha Christies in

French and it was surprising how good many of them were to read again. One

curious book they supplied me with was an early work by Jules Verne about the

French Canadian patriots of 1837. I believe that, in addition, to his science fiction

work he also went through an anti-British period when he wrote works about

British imperialism in Canada, India and Ireland.

In the first two weeks I had been interested in their political ideas and the i r

ob jec t ives and we had had a ce r t a in amount o f discussion but after La

Porte's death I felt that I no longer wanted to pursue these subjects and we really

sank into our two solitudes. The great problem throughout was that I never knew

what was going on behind me and it would have been a disaster for me to have

turned my head and seen any of my captors. This was sometimes very

difficult to avoid if a sudden noise happened behind me or somebody spoke

to me. The only major events of those weeks were first an occasion when they sat

me on a box (supposedly containing dynamite) took certain pictures of me

which were later released to the press together with a letter from me (dictated of

course by them) and a letter to my wife. It caused rather an unpleasant incident with

my captors because they had spelt the words prisoners in English with two N's

(as in French) and I had not corrected it. The press took this up as suggesting that I

was trying to pass some sort of code message. As, of course, I was being held in

north Montreal it could have been an attempt to convey information but, of course, I

had no idea where I was. Following press commentary on this they were quite

hostile to me for a couple of days, practically the only occasion on which any

really nasty incidents arose.

I'd already adjusted my mind to getting through the period up to Christmas and

was beginning to think that I might possibly have to last through the whole winter.

At the beginning of December there seemed to be a little more activity around with

people coming and going and discussions about the amount of money they had which

suggested that they were finding it difficult to keep going.

The 2nd December was a day much as usual. I noticed that there did not seem

to be so many people around but this was not unusual as they sometimes left

10

for a few hours. This evening they came and put handcuffs on me which was the first

time this had happened for a number of weeks. I asked what had happened and

they told me that the police knew where I was and had arrested two of their

comrades who had gone out during the day and not returned. Later that evening all

the lights in the apartment went off and at that I was taken from my chair, led into

the passageway between the rooms and handcuffed to a door handle. In this

extremely uncomfortable position where I could neither sit nor stand I spent the

rest of the night. They clearly expected an attack during the night and on one occasion

began to compose a message of defiance to be thrown out of the window.

When they had finished drafting this somebody said, "We must add our slogan

'nous vaincrons'" meaning 'we shall win'. At that absurdity of three men

defying the whole of the Canadian security services we all burst out laughing. Dawn

came. I was allowed to stand up and move around the corridor. They remained on

the alert. At some time in the morning the negotiator appointed by the

Federal Government, Mr Mergler, a lawyer who had represented FLQ

members in the past, came and knocked on the door. There was considerable

dismantl ing as they had wired the door with explosives against attack.

He came in and as his first question asked me the name of the bull terrier we had

when living in Delhi. This had been agreed by my wife as a codeword.

Interestingly enough the full title of the story from which the name is drawn is "Garm

a hostage". Then followed two hours of negotiation. The government proposal was that

we should all go to the EXPO site where a building had been designated as the

Cuban consulate for the day. I would remain there under the supervision of the Cuban

Consul while the kidnappers and their families were flown to Cuba. As soon

as they arrived in Cuba I would be released. They were extremely suspicious

of all this and suggested that as soon as they got outside the building they

would be mowed down. Mr Mergler and I pointed out that they could hardly do

this if I was among them. Finally they agreed and towards 1:00pm we went down into

the basement and climbed into the battered old car in which I presume I had

arrived two months before. The back of the car was covered in newspaper to

prevent a shot being taken. I got in the back with Lanctot and Carbonneau the taxi

driver and Seguin were in the front. Carbonneau was extremely nervous and as we

drove out of the garage scraped the wing of the car. When we got outside into the

bright sunlight it was an astonishing sight with hundreds of police and soldiers

11

lining the streets. Mergler climbed into the front of the car and we started this

terrific ride behind police outsiders across Montreal. The back door of the car was

shaky and at time as we went round corners I was worried that Lanctot would fall

out so I hung on to him. Finally we crossed the long bridge to the Expo site,

pulled up outside the then designated Cuban Consulate. Bill Ashford, my

information colleague, was there waiting for me and we went into the building. I

turned to one side, my kidnappers to the other and I never saw them again.

I had to remain in the Consulate then until about midnight. I first t a l k e d t o m y

w i f e i n S w i t z e r l a n d a n d t h e n t o t h e H i g h Commissioner in Ottawa. I

spoke later to Mr Trudeau and to Mr B o u r a s s a t h e P r i m e M i n i s t e r o f

Q u e b e c . F o o d a r r i v e d , unfortunately nobody had thought to provide any drink, a

great deprivation after two months without alcohol. At 6:00 the

kidnappers left; their families having been collected at the airport and then Mr

Charquette (the Minister of Justice) arrived, then my daughter came, then later in the

evening Mr Bourassa the Prime Minister. I stayed there until midnight when I was

driven to the Jewish General Hospital (my GP was a consultant there) where I

was weighed, tested and spent a peaceful night. The following day I had further

tests, then a long session with the police recording my impressions of the

kidnappers and went to the office to see the staff. On Saturday morning early we

drove to the airport and I made a short speech before flying to England together

with my daughter. On the plane I gave a long description of the whole affair

to Jim Davy - one of Mr Trudeau's aids but alas he had failed to switch his

tape recorder on. When we landed at London my wife came on board to meet us and

we descended to meet the press. After a brief interview we went by car to Dorney

Wood, the Foreign Secretary's country residence where we spent a quiet

weekend. This then is the main gist of the story but it may be helpful if I fill in

some background points.

1.The intellectual background of the FLQ

The kidnappers claimed to be Marxist/Anarchist but I could find no trace of deep

intellectual thought of either of these movements. I think their two main

inspirations were the sense of oppression felt by many French Canadians and

expressed in Valliere's book 'The White Niggers of America'. Secondly, the influence

12

of the Algerian psychologist Fanon. Fanon's philosophy is that a

colonised people can only achieve independence through the blood of the

conquerors. Not a very pleasing prospect when you are described as one of the

conquering race. There was a certain amount of influence from the various

movements of the 1960's which swept the United States, such as the SDS, Black

Panthers but I do not think they had any strong intellectual connections. There

was later evidence I believe that the French government were offering some sort

of subsidies.

2. Survival

The questions I've frequently been asked is how one manages to survive such

circumstances. My only answer is that I do not think that anyone knows until they

have been through the experience itself. My own technique was that in the

first forty eight hours when I heard the manifesto and the statement that I

would be executed within forty eight hours if the demands were not met was

to decide what my extinction meant. I thought through what the disappearance

of Jasper Cross from the world would mean and declared that, although I'm

not a religious man this was not the end of things and there would be some future

existence. This, I think, was an important point of reference because

whenever things went bad in the future I was always able to come back to this

baseline and achieve peace of mind by regarding it.

3. Relations with the kidnappers

Another question which is frequently raised is the 'Stockholm Syndrome' where the

victim becomes associated or identifies with the objectives of the kidnappers. I can

only say that I felt no such sympathy. I hated the lot of them and would have

cheerfully killed them if the opportunity arose. This does not mean that I

could not maintain friendly relations on the surface. I was operating on

two levels . One, my real thoughts and two, a superficial correspondence

with them. It is impossible to live for eight weeks completely cut off from people

with whom you are sharing a room. I always believe that it was important to

avoid reaching a stage where I felt oppressed and angered by them. This applied too

to the question of asking little favours of them. I would never ask for

anything which I thought would be refused. In fact, when I was not allowed to

13

do things such as shave I felt badly for a day or two. This point also applies to the

question of communication with the outside world. Others have asked how I could

write the material which I did about the treatment of FLQ prisoners outside. My

view was that I wrote whatever was dictated to me because it was the only

means of communication available to me. It gave my family the knowledge that I

was still alive and there was always a danger or a hope that they would make a

mistake in delivering these communications and could be traced to their hideout.

4. Strength of the FLQ

At the time of the of the imposition of the War Measures Act there were a number of

wild statements about the strength of the FLQ and the resources they

possessed. It now seems clear that like many terrorist organisations there was a

small group of hardline operatives with a number of supporters. The probable

estimate is that there were perhaps fifty active terrorists in Montreal in 1970, split

into perhaps 8-10 cells. The operation was there would be a general discussion of a plan

of action. A cell would then be given a "mandat" to carry this out. Thereafter

communication with other cells would be broken to preserve security except that

there were a n u m b e r o f p e o p l e d e s i g n a t e d t o a c t a s c o m m u n i c a t i o n

representatives and, if necessary, to provide money. This system made the police

operation difficult. In my own case they knew from very early on that Lanctot

was involved and that he had a pregnant wife. Therefore, by following up their

previous address and discovering where furniture from that had been moved they

managed to track down one of her close friends. By keeping an eye on this person

which involved a great deal of surveillance about Montreal they managed to find out the

whereabouts of Jaques and Louise Cassette-Trudel. They followed them back to the

house but, of course, at this stage they were not sure if I was in the building. A

period of observation of a week to ten days then followed until the police decided

that they could wait no longer and arrested the Cassette-Trudels when they were out

of the house on December 2nd. In the case of the Laporte kidnappers one of

them was arrested in early November in an apartment in Montreal. The others

were finally tracked down in an underground bunker of a farmhouse south of Montreal

towards the end of December.

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5. Mad ideas

As in all cases like this, police were bombarded with crazy people of every sort with

ideas as to where I could be found. They read all sorts of things into my letters

(which, of course, I did not intend). My wife and I exchanged the endearment 'Pooh'

as in Winnie-the-Pooh and that set a whole load of policemen onto reading the A.A.

Milne books in the hope that a clue would emerge. Clairvoyants wrote in with

detailed descriptions as to where I should be found. One of them claimed that I

was in a building in East Montreal which turned out to be a deep freeze store. One

reference in one of my letters to 'pet ' led to a raid on an innocuous pet shop

in Westmont. Perhaps the most elaborate operation concerned certain

radio signals which were picked up. Radio location was applied and the

premises raided to discover that it was merely a radio shop which had left a

transmitter on.

Tape Two of Three

The following tape by Jasper Cross - former Consul General in Montreal refers to

the letter from Malcolm McBain of 30th November 1995. The answers to his

questions are as follows.

2. Canada's Importance

On Canada's importance the main concern of the UK with Canada in the 1960's

arose form the old Commonwealth links. Canada was still important as a trading

partner and we had large British investment in the country but interest in the

United Kingdom was switching to our effort to get into Europe and I think there

was little concern about Canada.

3. Quebec's Importance

Quebec was the home of one of the two founding races of Canada. It contained

almost one quarter of the Canadian population at that time. Quebec was a major

producer of raw materials and hydroelectricity, much of it exported to the United States.

4. Experience

At the time I was a Board of Trade civil servant. Following the amalgamation of the

Trade Commissioner Service with the FCO the Board of Trade still had a line on

15

a few overseas commercial posts of which Montreal was one. I was forty six on

appointment.

5. Preparation

The main preparation was an intensive immersion course in French at the

Diplomatic Service Language School. There was little other briefing. From my

previous Canadian experience and my recent Board of Trade job dealing with

export fairs and exhibitions I was in fairly close contact with Canada and had, in

fact, been there the previous May. I did have a brief chat with the North

American department of the FCO but suspect that I knew more about Quebec

than they did.

6. Arrival

We arrived via New York (it was winter). I went to Ottawa within a few days to see

the main people in the High Commission, High Commissioner, Deputy High

Commissioner.

7. Reporting

Political reporting went to Ottawa for onward transmission. Commercial

reporting was generally to the Board of Trade although sometimes on major

issues we would go via the Deputy High Commissioner in Ottawa.

8. Accreditation

In every Commonwealth country there was no fixed system of accreditation except

notification of ones appointment to the federal and provincial governments. My

remit was the whole of the province of Quebec, however, we had an

information officer (really a consul) in Quebec City and there was a certain amount

of sensitivity about my involvement with the government of Quebec lest I diminish

his role. The Quebec government attached a great importance to the representatives in

Quebec City having as high a s tatus as possible. As I 've said above Quebec

was a major industrial and mining producer. Montreal was at that stage one of

the dominant American commercial cities with wide interests not only through

Canada but also internationally. In part it was a major airline centre with the

16

headquarters of ICAO and IATA. Quebec was primarily a political and

administrative capital but I made occasional visits there to call on the

appropriate ministers and officials.

9. The consular corps of Montreal

This body met as a group only a t monthly lunches and a t occasional

general receptions, for example, for city officials. Nearly all the major countries (US,

France, Italy, USSR) were represented by Consulates General or Consulates. A number

of others were represented by honorary consuls, usually people concerned with

the shipping industry. The French consulate general dealt mainly with their

citizens together with a good deal of promotion of F r e n c h l a n g u a g e a n d

c u l t u r e . T h e i r r o l e w a s s o m e w h a t diminished by the presence of a

'minister plenipotentiary' in Quebec City who dealt with French political interest

in Quebec including support for separatist groups. The French also had a commercial

counsellor who as usual was not on speaking terms with the Consul General. The

United States Consulate General had a general political role and also maintained

contact with a large number of American controlled companies in Quebec. They

also had a vast amount of consular work with people wanting to emigrate

to the United States (usually European immigrants who were using Canada as a

staging post).

10. The British Government Office

Staff when I arrived comprised of one grade three, one grade four, one grade five

(information and consular) one grade six, two grade seven and a total staff of about

thirty. In addition, to deal with normal consular and information work in the

province of Quebec we also acted as the distributing post for commercial enquiries

for the whole of Canada. My main role was the direction of the commercial

work although inevitably I got involved in normal representational duties plus

publicity eg speeches to rotary clubs etc.

11. Political nature of the job

I real ized from my reading before I went to Montreal that observing the

political scene was to be one of the major parts of my responsibilities. This

became even clearer when I started to make my rounds of the leading businessmen

17

in the city and it was clear that the main preoccupation at the time was with the political

future of Quebec. I should explain that a Union Nationale government had

just taken power and the signs of a move towards demanding some form of

sovereignty for Quebec were already in the air.

12. Conditions

For most of our time there we had at least one living in servant. The office

provided a car and driver for official functions only. Allowances were generally

very good. Certainly enough to maintain a reasonable style of existence. The flag

was hardly ever flown because the Union Jack had political implications in Quebec. I

think the only time I flew it was when we went to the funeral service for the late

Premier Daniel Johnson.

13. Kidnappers’ attitude towards me

I had been in the pos t two and a quar te r years before the kidnapping.

The FLQ found out about my Irish background when we watched some television

programme about the disturbances then going on in Northern Ireland. I do not think

they knew of my background already although they could easily have found out by

research on articles at the time of my arrival. I do not know whether it

made any difference to their treatment of me. I suspect they thought even less of me

for being an 'imperialist lackey'.

14. Barbara (Mrs Barbara Cross)

Barba ra r ema ined in t he house fo r t h r ee weeks a f t e r my kidnapping. It

was then thought too stressful for her to be there at a time when there were

frequent hoax calls from people claiming that they knew where I was. She then

went to Switzerland to stay with Mr and Mrs Midgley (Eric Midgley was our

Ambassador in Switzerland at the time) and she remained there until my release.

My allowances continued until the end of the month in which I was released

when I was speedily returned to the Board of Trade. Bill Ashford the information

officer together with my daughter who was living in Montreal at the time saw to the

packing of our belongings and the sale of the car within a month after my

departure.

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15. Kidnappers

I do not know what happened to the kidnappers in Cuba. After a couple of years

they moved to Paris where they embarked on a series of menial jobs. They

returned to Montreal in the late seventies and were given very light prison

sentences most of which was then suspended.

16. The story of the ordeal

This has always been a subject of intense interest in Montreal and indeed in Canada

general ly. The reason is that the subject separation has been a live issue ever

since 1970 leading up to the referendum in October 1995. A major topic of

controversy has been the decision of the Trudeau government to introduce the War

Measures Act and arrest and hold a number of people without trial in October

1970. In particular at every anniversary (five, ten, twenty, twenty five years) there

has been a series of newspaper articles or television programmes on the events. I

have frequently been asked to contribute to these. (See Annex B for the story as

now revealed in the Canadian Cabinet Papers).

17. Story

When I returned to London I discovered that very large offers were being made

for my story, some up to £100,000. The Foreign Office which had done very little

to aid me in my captivity had been very effective in blocking any gain by me and

had already consulted the Civil Service department and the Cabinet Office and a firm

veto was in place.

18. Subsequent Visits

I have been back to Montreal on three occasions. In 1981 we visited it as private

citizens and simply saw friends and old colleagues. In 1990 we went there as

gues ts of two Canadian te lev is ion companies for whom I did programmes. In

1995 we went back to Montreal at the invitation of the family of Pierre

Laporte, the Quebec minister who was murdered at the same time as my

kidnapping, to attend a twenty fifth anniversary memorial mass for him.

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19. Interest shown in my story.

See answers to (16) above.

ANNEX A

SECURITY

A paper on 'Current Threats to National Order - S & I 10' was discussed by the

Canadian Cabinet Committee on Security and Intelligence on 19/12/69. The paper

looked at two main issues. Firstly, it considered the general law and order

situation, in particular in Quebec in the light of such events as the Montreal

Police strike and recent labour disputes. It then went on to look at the long term

question of Canadian National Objectives - in particular the Separatist threat.

It recommended:

a/ a review of the intelligence resources available and

b/ deeper consideration of the causes of threats to the 'order, unity and integrity of the

nation'.

There was rather inconclusive discussion at the committee. All agreed on the need for

more information but it was suggested that the RCMP was hampered by

being regarded as an alien force in Quebec. The RCMP also asked for clear

directives as to how far they could go in investigating separatism.

It was finally agreed that the RCMP should seek closer cooperation with the Quebec

and Montreal police forces and that Ministers would consider further the broad question

of national unity. In the first half of 1970 there were three attempts in Montreal

against foreign representatives; the Israeli and Greek consuls in the spring and the

American consul Harrison Burgess in June. In the last case the police raided the

hideout where the plotters were and discovered the whole scenario (one to be

replicated exactly in my own case in October.)

On April 13 1970 the Security Service (then a branch of the RCMP) told the Cabinet

Office that regular meetings were being held with the Quebec and Montreal police

forces to decide "procedures to be followed in the event that a person such as a

diplomat is kidnapped and held in order to secure the release of a convicted

terrorist." In addition, in June 1970 the RCMP established a permanent liaison

group with links to the Department of External Affairs "to be immediately available

in the event of a crisis concerning foreign diplomatic personnel." RCMP assessments

20

of the worsening situation in Quebec were seen and considered at various levels of

the Federal government at different periods prior to October 1970. None of

this was known by me or, to the best of my knowledge, by any of my

colleagues at the British High Commission in Ottawa.

ANNEX B

WAR MEASURES ACT

During the first week of the October crisis there was little or no discussion of extra

measures to deal with the problem. The main emphasis was on finding out what the

kidnappers wanted and deciding how best to handle their demands. The only

firm decision was to allow the FLQ manifesto to be broadcast. By October 12th

(Monday) after Laporte's kidnapping the Security Committee looked at the problem.

The PM was not in favour of invoking the War Measures Act but was prepared to

consider special legislation but "neither course to be considered until all other

avenues under the law had been exhausted."

On October 14th (Wednesday) it was reported that the Quebec Government was

seeking authority for raids and would be asking for the support of the armed

forces. The RCMP Commissioner said that a broad sweep of suspects linked to

preventive detention was not likely to lead to finding the kidnappers and he

did not recommend special powers. A further cabinet meeting that evening considered

two developments:

1: The call by the Levesque/Ryan group to the Government to comply with the

FLQ demands.

2: A report from M. Saulnier (Chairman of Metro Montreal) that the Taxi Liberation

Movement intended to hold a demonstration that evening which might turn into

violence.

The Department of Justice reported that the Quebec Authorities were

thinking of arresting 200/500 in the first sweep and 900 in all. The RCMP

Commissioner's view was that there were in all about 180 suspects: - 68 hard-core FLQ,

48 Maoists and 2 further groups of about 35 each.

Thursday October 15th was the key day for decisions on the War Measures Act.

21

At 9.00 a.m Cabinet Meeting Jean Marchand (who had been in Montreal the

previous day) presented a very alarming picture of the situation there. He said that that

the FLQ had two tons of dynamite and the means to explode it by radio control. Only

a failure of equipment had prevented an explosion in Montreal the previous day.

There was concern about the ability of the Bourassa Government to hold the situation.

It was in the midst of an emergency session of the legislature to force medical

specialists back to work. It was finally agreed that if the Quebec government so

requested the War Measures Act should be invoked in the early hours of Friday

October 16th.

The PM consulted opposition leaders and reported later that Messrs Douglas (NDP) and

Caouette (Creditists) agreed but Mr Stanfield (Conservative) could not make his mind

up. A meeting of the Quebec Cabinet at 6.00pm that evening agreed to ask for

federal help and the War Measures Act was duly invoked.

Tape Three of Three

Discussing the Trade Commissioner Service in Commonwealth countries between

1950 - 1970.

I will start by giving a brief introduction of my own career. After school and

university in Dublin where I studied economics and political science I joined the

British army and served in England, Pales t ine , Egypt . Whi le I was s t i l l in the

army I took the reconstruction examination for the home civil service and

was released to become an assistant principal in the Board of Trade in February 1947.

After a series of posts in the Board of Trade in London, including a year as

private secretary to the Parliamentary Secretary I elected to join the Trade

Commissioner Service in 1953. My service included New Delhi (1953-56), Halifax

Nova-Scotia (1957-60), Winnipeg Manitoba (1960-62). From 1962 -1966 I was senior

Trade Commissioner at Kuala Lumpur covering the present territories of

Malaysia and Singapore. I then returned to the Board of Trade to work on the

export side but was seconded to the Trade Commissioner Service as senior Trade

Commissioner in Montreal from 1968-70.

I will start by a brief background to the establishment of the Trade Commissioner

Service. At the turn of the century there was great interest in Britain led by

Joseph Chamberlain in the idea of building up the British Empire as a trading

22

organisation. This was partly inspired by Chamberlain's imperialist dream but also by

the need to compete with the rapidly increasing German industrial power. At

an industrial conference in 1906 it was agreed that in order to promote Empire

trade Britain would establish Trade Commissions in most of the countries of the

Empire. Within the next couple of years Senior Trade Commissioners were

appointed in Ottawa, Cape Town, and Canberra and by 1914 there were a

network of Trade Commissions across the Empire supported by unpaid trade

correspondents (usually local commissioners of customs) in the smaller

countries. Our prime interest was to promote British trade in colonies but

they did have a secondary role in operating on behalf of those imperial countries who

did not have their own representatives in a particular part of the world.

Most of this activity ceased with the beginning of the First World War. During

the war there was a heated discussion in Britain about the future

organisation of government culminating in the Haldane Commission of 1918. The

Board of Trade and the Foreign Office had conflicting views about how

commercial diplomatic work should be organised abroad. The Board of Trade

wished to retain control without getting involved in the actual mechanics. Finally, the

compromise was reached of establishing a Department of Overseas Trade. This was a

joint Foreign Office /Board of Trade department with a junior minister who

reported to both the Foreign Secretary and the President of the Board of Trade. It

ran a c o m m e r c i a l i n f o r m a t i o n s e r v i c e a t h o m e , a n d a b r o a d

responsibili ty was divided between commercial diplomatic officers in

foreign countries and the Trade Commissioners in the remaining Commonwealth

countries and the colonies.

This organisat ion pers is ted unt i l the great Foreign Office reorganisation

of 1944 which amalgamated the three wings of the Foreign Service; political,

consular and commercial. There was some doubt as to the future organisation of

commercial work in Commonwealth countries and finally the solution reached

was that the 'home' side of the Department of Overseas Trade should be

amalgamated in the Board of Trade. In Commonwealth countries the

Commonwealth Relations Office (the old Dominions Office) was responsible for

al l work except economic and commercial . This res idue was the

responsibi l i ty of Trade Commissioners who were servants of the Board of

23

Trade and reported to them. (It was not a happy relationship and caused

much friction between the two organisations, particularly when difficult

personalities filled corresponding posts in the field). In the 1960's the strains of

the bifurcation became obvious and with the amalgamation of the Foreign and

Commonwealth Office it was decided to amalgamate all overseas services into one

diplomatic service. The bulk of the Trade Commissioners then serving were transferred

to the new service but a few like myself returned to the Board of Trade.

The following notes on a personal basis reflect my view on the operation of the

Trade Commissioner Service in the 1950's and 1960's.

Our first role was that of commercial information. We were in the business of

providing potential importers in the country to which we were serving with as much

information about United Kingdom developments and products which would

encourage them to buy from Britain. The basis of our knowledge was the

personal experience we had gained of British industry over the years,

backed up by structured tours of companies when visiting the United

Kingdom, reading of the British press, supporting material from BIS etc. The second

ro le was to repor t to the Uni ted Kingdom on developments in the

country to which we were serving. Prior to 1950 this had been formalised by

the production of annual economic reports on the developments in the country

containing a wealth of background and statistics. It was found that these were

much too general to serve the needs of the British exporter and, in fact, were

probably used more by our foreign competitors than by our own cus tomers .

They were then replaced by monthly economic reports on short term

trends. In addition we embarked on a programme of market surveys looking at

particular products in response to the demands of Brit ish industries

expressed through their trade associations. In all countries a special task was to

look out for possible developments of major projects - new dams, new

industrial developments and report these to the United Kingdom so that our firms

could get in on the ground floor before the programmes were set. From the mid

1950's onwards, overseas aid became a major element in this and frequently we

would try and offer consultants to prepare reports on possible developments with the

hope that some of the business would come our way. Trade Commissioners

did regular tours of their areas to keep in touch with the developments and meet

24

people outside the major cities. This, properly done, could be extremely useful as

frequently one could get from quite minor but highly qualified officials in

branch plants information which the head office was reluctant to reveal. At this

period a great deal of the routine work of Trade Commissioner posts was concerned

with the agency system - a large number of British companies operated through

agents and a great part of out task was to try to find new agents with the right contacts

and keep an eye on those who were already holding British products. This was

a much more complex task than might appear since it might depend on local

knowledge. For example, in the province of Quebec one had to know that the major

distributor of religious goods was a nephew of the Archbishop. Status reports on

agents looking for goods and reports on their ability were sent back to the Board

of Trade who distributed them through their export services organisations.

A great deal of the help we were able to give British industry falls under no particular

heading other than that of general assistance. You could regard the Trade

Commissioner Service as a 'fleet in being' - on the spot, ready to respond to any

demands. One of the major issues that came up in my time included what would in

the old days have been called the 'establishment business', namely the r ight of

Br i t i sh companies to operate f reely in a country .

Sometimes this depended on local legislation and as many of the newly emerging

countries were developing their own legal system one became heavily involved.

For example, both in India and Malaya I was concerned with the introduction of

new company legislation and new insurance legislation. I recall, rather wryly in the

light of later events, the struggle for the right of Lloyds to continue as an

uncontrolled insurance operation. There was also the question of British firms

having the right to maintain their own staff in the country and get work permits for ex-

pats. At a time when developing countries ran into commercial difficulties,

par t icular ly in India we were heavi ly involved wi th such questions as

import control and the imposi t ion of customs regulations which might affect

British products. For example, in Malaya we found that new regulations on foot-and-

mouth disease would have prevented the import of British beef. Our case against the

ban was somewhat weakened when we discovered that the technical advice

had been given by the veterinary department of the British Ministry of Agriculture.

25

Another major issue which was important to India in the 1950's and began to

show its head in Malaysia and Singapore in the 1960's was that of local

manufacture. It was always a clash here between the desire of British companies to go

on manufacturing in Britain and sending the finished product to their old

imperial markets and the natural aim of developing countries to build up their

own industr ies . The Trade Commissioners were in a particularly difficult

situation because we could see that, unless people made the effort to manufacture

locally, they would find themselves in due course excluded from the market.

However, we did find ourselves accused of being too pro-Indian, pro-Malay, or pro-

Singapore when we tried to explain this view to British companies. It is sad

to think that I spent quite a lot of time in the 1960's trying to persuade the then

British Motor Corporation to take some steps to establish at least local

assembly in Malaya. Today the Proton car, a Japanese model built in Malaysia, is

selling well in Britain.

There were a whole host of other problems which came across one’s desk. A

few of them included the question of fraud and copying of trade marks. I

recall on one occasion visiting a little shop in a bazaar in New Delhi to find within

a quite small room an assembly l ine for bicycles a t the end of which was a

t ray containing the names of all the leading British makes - Rudge, Raleigh,

BSA which were being applied indiscriminately to the finished products. We had a

role in financial advice although ECGD who were p r i me l eade r s i n t h i s

go t mos t o f t he i r information from the banks but on occasion when things

went wrong we had to get ourselves involved.

British Missions

This became important in the 1960's as a means of government help to British

exporters. The system was that if a chamber of commerce or trade

association organised a collective trip to a foreign country the British

government would refund part of the cost. Therefore, the local post became

involved in planning programmes in advance, arranging for the visi tors

to meet businessmen in whom they might be interested and almost always provide

entertainment for them. The value of these depended very much on the quality of the

organisers. A well organised mission could produce good results whereas some

26

of them were merely looking for a cheap trip. For much of the 1960's this was

organised through the British National Exports Council.

Reflections

I have suggested some of the things we did. Now I would like to turn to our

actual operat ions and background and how we achieved these ends. Our

first role was to be well-informed about the United Kingdom. This meant

keeping up with the guidance from London (sometimes rather slow), the British

newspapers and economic press (Financial Times, Economist), the leading trade

journals which might have an interest on our area and, as I mentioned

above, our discussions with British business on our tours of the United

Kingdom. Our job, apart from watching the natural flow of information through

press, television etc was to maintain a wide range of contacts which covered each

aspect of economic life in which, in our role as 'fleet in being', we might be asked to be

involved. This, not any passion for entertainment, determined our involvement with

the local community. It was obvious that we should know the leaders of the

main businesses so that in case of difficulty they could be approached on a personal

basis but it was also very important to have a wide range of general

contacts eg lawyers, architects, consulting engineers. These are people who by

the very nature of their occupation cover a wide range of activities and can always be

very useful in gaining information.

Recruitment

In the early days the Trade Commissioner Service drew its members from

a very wide range of occupations. A number were recruited directly from business.

Ainscough, who was Trade Commissioner in India for twenty five years, had been a

local businessman. After the First World War Russian specialists Bruce Lockhart and

Peters were recruited to the Commercial Diplomatic Service. Between the wars there

was a regular recruitment system on the l ines of the consular service to staff

both the Trade Commiss ioner and Commerc ia l Dip lomat ic Serv ice .

The Department of Overseas Trade at home made an effort to recruit a number of

people from quite a range of backgrounds outside the usual government

services - including some engineers and scientists. Immediately after the

Second World War there was a certain crisis of personnel. Naturally some of

27

the older hands continued to serve out their time but the Board of Trade

which took over control never really worked out a proper personnel policy.

In the end the gap was filled by the recruitment of a number of people

from the Indian civil service some of whom reached the top jobs in the Trade

Commissioner Service. From then on the Board of Trade operated by fits

and starts in its staffing policy. Frequently the senior jobs were filled by

officers from home eager to relieve promotion blockage at key points in the

department. Sometimes when promotion was difficult it was possible to recruit

competent officers but the fundamental question of attaching a small overseas

service to a large home department which was itself constantly changing was never

really resolved. There was also the problem that no one at home was taking an

overall view of both the work and the staffing of the service.

REVIEW

One would need to seek a wide range of op in ions on the effectiveness

of the Trade Commissioner Service in the post war world. My own experience

suggests that we threw too many resources into our operations in the old

Commonwealth - Canada, Australia etc, where trade was relatively free. The constant

cry for exports after 1945 meant that the constant reaction was to appoint more staff to

promote exports without considering whether British industry had either the capacity

or the will to fulfil demands. In fact, probably our most effective operation

was in the newly independent Third World countries where experienced staff

were able to preserve some of the old British influence and helped to guide our

manufacturers in the new world of import restrictions, controls and local

manufacture. It is a reflection of the trend of British policy in this century that the

Trade Commissioner Service, born in the flush of imperial supremacy at the beginning

of the century, should end as Britain was turning its attention from the Commonwealth

towards Europe.

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